Diablo III Lifts Restrictions On New Digital Players

The two biggest restrictions on new digital copies have been removed. New owners will now be able to play the whole game and will be able to gain rank past level 13. Before new players were restricted to Act One.

Not all of the restrictions have been removed. While Blizzard is verifying your purchase, you'll still:

Be restricted from chat in both public and private channels

Have no public game access

Be unable to trade with other players or drop loot to share with other players

And be unable to attach custom message to friend requests, although they can send and accept friend requests from all players

In other words, you won't be able to join the game and start being obnoxious. We doubt anybody in the community is complaining about that however. The verification process takes a maximum of 72 hours, although often players are cleared for full gameplay much earlier.

In light of the difficulties of the Diablo III launch, it's good to see Blizzard able and willing to balance fan concerns with boardroom priorities. Now how about LAN in Starcraft II?